NEWS FLASH!!!

Radar • Jun 9, 2005 11:19 am
[SIZE=5][FONT=Arial]MY WIFE FINALLY GOT HER VISA!!![/FONT][/SIZE]

I guess going to the U.S. Consulate in Vietnam and yelling at people finally got them off their asses. :)

My wife (Thien Thu) will probably be here by the 20th. :D
Queen of the Ryche • Jun 9, 2005 11:22 am
HOORAY ! ! ! CONRATS ! ! ! Guess the trip was well worth it, finally!!! We look forward to welcoming ehr to the Cellar with open arms!
Trilby • Jun 9, 2005 11:24 am
Congrats, Radar. I know how you've been worried about all this. Way to go!!
wolf • Jun 9, 2005 12:17 pm
Congratulations, radar!
mrnoodle • Jun 9, 2005 12:19 pm
Excellent news. Hope to see you in the "OMG I'm gonna kill my significant other" thread real soon ;)
lookout123 • Jun 9, 2005 12:21 pm
good for you. how do you pronounce her name? yes, i am ignorant.
glatt • Jun 9, 2005 12:32 pm
Wow. I'm impressed. Good job Radar. I honestly thought you stood a good chance of blowing it by showing up there. Way to go!
plthijinx • Jun 9, 2005 12:49 pm
congrats! great job!
LabRat • Jun 9, 2005 1:12 pm
wow, nice job, congrats!
Clodfobble • Jun 9, 2005 1:17 pm
Wow, that's great! Tell her to register here immediately. :)
Elspode • Jun 9, 2005 1:27 pm
Alright, fresh meat! I mean, um...congrats, Radar.

Seriously, this is great news and somewhat restores my faith in The American Way.
kerosene • Jun 9, 2005 2:11 pm
Congratulations, Radar. That's excellent news!
BigV • Jun 9, 2005 2:12 pm
lookout123 wrote:
good for you. how do you pronounce her name? yes, i am ignorant.
She - who - must - be - o - bayed.
BigV • Jun 9, 2005 2:13 pm
Now, Radar, FELICITATIONS!
SteveDallas • Jun 9, 2005 2:15 pm
Hey, that's great news. Congrats!
lookout123 • Jun 9, 2005 2:17 pm
now just wait til she gets a different kind of Visa. radar will be bitching about working 20 hour days at the hot dog cart trying to pay the bill.
Radar • Jun 9, 2005 2:38 pm
Thanks everyone! I finally had enough and I went there and became the ugly American and bothered the hell out of them every 2 days. I think they gave her the Visa so they wouldn't have to deal with me anymore.


My wife's name is kind of hard to pronounce in English, but I'll give it a shot.

Thien Thu - TEE-UN TUH - it means "The book of heaven"

But everyone calls her Hoa (pronounced WA) - which means "flower"


She is very excited and happy. She can't wait for us to finally to be together and for us to have kids. Her aunt has been talking her out of the hot dog cart. She thinks there is no way to make good money with a cart, and said it would be better for me to make half the money working on computers than double selling hot dogs.
lookout123 • Jun 9, 2005 2:40 pm
her aunt just has an aversion to american weenies.
xoxoxoBruce • Jun 9, 2005 11:35 pm
Hooray, Man. I'm shocked you didn't get your ass locked up or deported. :lol:

Does she have any blood relatives here in the states? I assume she knows enough English to function when you're not around.....wait...CA....or Spanish.

Good luck to you both.
Griff • Jun 10, 2005 9:24 pm
Nice going Bro. Treat her nice!
OnyxCougar • Jun 13, 2005 10:39 am
YAY Radar and Hoa!! Can't wait to "meet" her!
cjjulie • Jun 13, 2005 3:31 pm
Fantastic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Congratulations :D :D :D

(guess we know what you will be doing on the 20th :love: )
Bullitt • Jun 14, 2005 12:46 am
Clodfobble wrote:
Wow, that's great! Tell her to register here immediately. :)


oh please don't subject that poor woman to this place.. it's common knowledge that this site is a gateway drug
warch • Jun 16, 2005 7:46 pm
Be good to each other! congratulations.
elSicomoro • Jun 16, 2005 7:47 pm
Good luck and best wishes for a happy life together, Radar.
OnyxCougar • Jun 17, 2005 6:49 pm
On a related note, my best friend's baby daddy (and fiancee) got his VISA, and he'll be here July 15th, in time for the birth.....
xoxoxoBruce • Jun 18, 2005 12:32 am
So you'll have another mouth to feed. ;)
OnyxCougar • Jun 19, 2005 11:13 am
She got a job and starts the 27th. So not so much :)
elSicomoro • Jun 19, 2005 11:20 am
Feed 'em bologna. :)
Radar • Jun 19, 2005 2:09 pm
OnyxCougar wrote:
She got a job and starts the 27th. So not so much :)


Come on people. I have some compassion. She'll have a week before I put her to work. ;)

Seriously though she has a job waiting for her whenever she wants it. She'll have to go to nail school. I found one on the way to my job so I can drop her off. I could get her work at my company, but it would be in an area called "kit assembly" where they get people who don't speak English very well pack boxes for shipping and send them. It doesn't pay much ($10-$12 hr) and it's like slave work. I think she'll be happier doing nails for cash.
xoxoxoBruce • Jun 21, 2005 6:04 am
I'd chain her to the dog cart. :whip:
Radar • Jun 21, 2005 12:13 pm
I'm getting pretty excited about my wife coming here. I'm also a bit nervous. It will be a huge lifestyle change for me to live with another person. My apartment isn't very big, and my closets are pretty full without any of her stuff. There is going to be an adjustment period for both of us.

I boxed up all my porno and brought in a couple of maids and had them work for 3 hours to get my place spotless. That way when Hoa comes here, I can tell her this is how I normally keep the apartment and how I expect her to keep it. :D

Seriously though, I just didn't want her to come here to a dirty place. She's going to be here in 3 days. She arrives on the 24th of June at 9pm.
BigV • Jun 21, 2005 12:39 pm
Radar wrote:
I'm getting pretty excited about my wife coming here. I'm also a bit nervous. It will be a huge lifestyle change for me to live with another person.
Understatement of your life. Til you have kids.
Radar wrote:
--clip--I boxed up all my porno and brought in a couple of maids and had them work for 3 hours to get my place spotless. --snip--
Uh, little typo there. I think you meant to say burned instead. And if you didn't, yes, you did. Go with me on this one.
mrnoodle • Jun 21, 2005 1:07 pm
What BigV said.

If she finds it she'll burn it anyway, plus you'll have a big teary-eyed fight about it. Or, sell it and use the money to take her to dinner. Then you can have real sex.
jinx • Jun 21, 2005 1:11 pm
Radar wrote:
I boxed up all my porno

BigV wrote:

Uh, little typo there. I think you meant to say burned instead.

What???? Why????
:confused:
BigV • Jun 21, 2005 1:17 pm
Look, if I'm right, I'm right. (yeah, like that's gonna happen)

But if I'm wrong, they can look at her porno. Or your porno.

This is the opposite of taking an umbrella out with you on a cloudy day. In this case, better to want it and not have it (and then go get it) than to have it and not want it.

your mileage clearly varies. That's cool too.
jinx • Jun 21, 2005 1:36 pm
Seems a little dishonest to me.
If you're into it, and you told her you're not or just hid it from her, and then she finds it - you lied. Why did you lie? What else have you lied about? How can she trust you now? Why don't you trust her enough to share the truth with her?*


*The things that will be going thru her mind instead of "Oh. Porn."
xoxoxoBruce • Jun 21, 2005 3:15 pm
She hasn't been her before. Tell her it's required for American men to have porn in order to protect the Constitution from infringement. :blush:
BigV • Jun 21, 2005 5:33 pm
For me, it was more the case of "out with the old and in with the new" or out with the fake and in with the real. what mrnoodle said.

Not everything that I used to do before I was married is appropos after we were married. And that's hardly a trust thing, consider dating. Did then, don't now. Or living alone, did, now don't. There are 1001 ways my life before and after marriage are different. Most good, most voluntary, some are no biggie, some medium, some are real sacrifices.

As to why did I lie and what did I lie about...you're not channelling my therapist, are you? Those are good, solid, meaty questions. Substantial questions, questions worthy of another thread, another tapestry even. I sense you ask in a hypothetical way, to encourage me to think about it. Ok, I'll bite.

*thinks about lying...*

A major motivation for lying is shame. Another is fear. Distrust. Laziness. There are other motivations for lying that are superficially more noble. To simplify. To avoid pain for one/both parties. Wishful thinking. To win. I have all these motivations, and more, in fluctuating proportions. These are flaws of mine. Flaws present in many people, flaws that are recognizable to many I imagine.

As I continue to mature and grow in grace as I grow in age, I strive to strengthen myself where I am weak. This striving happens in bursts. Sometimes, I have the chance to indulge one or more of these weaknesses and tell a lie. Every time I don't lie, I make that area of my life a little better. But I have a lot of room for improvement.
Radar • Jun 26, 2005 10:12 pm
Still getting used to the wife being here. I woke up this morning and was suprised to see her. It's my mom's birthday and I can't get her to eat American food. Up 'till now, I've done everything the "Vietnamese way", but now she's in America and she's going to have to get used to the idea that she's going to have to meet me half way.
xoxoxoBruce • Jun 26, 2005 10:23 pm
Better chain her to the hot dog cart before it's to late. Didn't you tell her in the US the man wears the pants in the family? The woman only tells him which pair. :lol:
Seriously though, if she isn't willing to respect your mother as I'm sure you respected all her family over there, then you've got some serious work to do.
footfootfoot • Jun 26, 2005 10:36 pm
Radar wrote:
Still getting used to the wife being here. I woke up this morning and was suprised to see her. It's my mom's birthday and I can't get her to eat American food. Up 'till now, I've done everything the "Vietnamese way", but now she's in America and she's going to have to get used to the idea that she's going to have to meet me half way.


Maybe you could take her to a hippie vegetarian restaurant, you know tofu, veggies, etc. Kind of cross–over/gateway food, ease her into the whole american culinary scene.

Seriously though, expect the culture shock to be real and profound. I never felt it when I left the US, but boy when I came back it was harsh. I love the US, but there are things about the way we live that are just plain whacked.

Isn't the best food in Cali anyway? When I vistied SF I was so jealous of the food you all had access to.